She takes them back to 1908, the Cubs’ last World Series win. It is the horse-and-buggy era, a largely rural America paved with dirt roads and very few automobiles. Ohioan William Howard Taft is campaigning to become the 27th president of the United States.
Dupree takes her children back to 1948, the Indians’ last victory. America is experiencing a post-war boom, but families make do without air conditioning, television sets, credit cards. Cell phones and the Internet remain decades away from being invented.
“My kids just couldn’t fathom it,” said the Centerville mother of six.
You could even argue that, in our world, everything has changed except the devotion of Cubs and Indians fans. They are so touching, these fans, with their deranged loyalty, their perseverance, their limitless capacity for suffering.
Cemeteries in Cleveland and Chicago are littered with Indians and Cubs memorabilia, ball caps and pennants and stuffed Cubbies bears crowding out the floral arrangements. At the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago, mourners leave ticket stubs — past and present — at the “Cubs fans forever wall” containing the ashes of eternally disappointed fans. Loved ones linger at the tombstones and weep with joy at how much this would have meant to Grandma and Grandpa, Mom and Dad, Uncle Joe and Aunt Myrtle.
For many, the tradition is as much about family as it is about fandom.
“Cheering for the Tribe is a family tradition passed from grandfather to father to daughters!” said Amy Glosh of Mason, a Cleveland native.
For Gary Petrick of Kettering, who grew up in Sandusky, rooting for the Indians is part of the family DNA. As his wife Carolyn observed, “Being die-hard Indians fans is part of who they are. He has been talking about his Uncle Ralph who took them on the train to see games when he was a kid. How excited his parents would be. In the joy of it all, it’s like those loved ones are with you once again.”
My sister Beth, a former Chicago resident, wonders what kind of person she will be if the Cubs win: “It teaches you the fundamentals: loyalty without reward, disappointment without despair, humility not arrogance. It is not the win; it is the experience. You fall in love with Wrigley Field and the Cubs, it is just that simple.”
Some fans feel as if they have slipped into an alternate universe. As Mark Willis of Centerville posted on Facebook: “I’ve been a dedicated fan for decades and just slowly accepted that we may never win it all,” he said. “I never believed in the curse or liked the lovable losers crap. It just seemed, for reasons we couldn’t understand, that we wouldn’t make it. If they win it all (and they will), it will upend my entire understanding of existence. Dancing aliens arriving big wheels would mean less to me.”
The teams have endured a combined 176-year drought. What keeps the fans going through all the heartbreak and loss? “As a lifelong Cubs fan, you can’t not do it,” Willis explained. “It would be like abandoning one of your children when he hits a rough patch in life. It’s an unconditional love. There’s a sense of family among real Cubs fans, we laugh and grumble together, like parents talking about their kids.’
As my friend Teri Rizvi observed, “The beauty of this World Series is that both teams are traditionally underdogs. The Indians also have not won in our lifetime. It’s a tale of hard luck and perseverance. And, in this depressing election season, both teams give us hope, even redemption. It’s a great escape from the headlines that dominate the airwaves.”
Speaking of elections, I can’t help but wonder what William Howard Taft would make of the changes in the world since the Cubs last won the series in 1908.
His great-grandson, former Ohio Governor Bob Taft, said there is much President Taft wouldn’t recognize about our elections today, from women voters, 18-to-20-year-old voters and even the number of states (46 in 1908). And that’s not to mention “presidential debates beamed into voters’ homes and the total loss of personal privacy for candidates.”
But here’s something the Taft could relate to: the dedication of baseball fans. “He was the first President to throw out the first pitch to start the season on opening day for the Washington Nationals in 1910,” said Bob Taft, who now teaches for the University of Dayton. “Being from Cincinnati he would have been a Cincinnati Red Stockings fan. He might have favored Cleveland being from Ohio although his brother, Charles P. Taft, helped to finance a former employee, and Cincinnati Times Star writer, Charles Murphy, who bought the Cubs in 1906, and made them a winner. Charles Taft owned the Cubs later for two years, from 1914 to 1916.”
So if your loyalties are divided, you’re in good company.
And if you’re rooting for the underdog, for the team about to make modern history?
You simply can’t lose.
About the Author